Saturday, August 22, 2015

Heel Hookery: Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Eddie Cummings is well-known as a leg lock specialist (e.g., see here). His recent success in the latest Eddie Bravo Invitational (EBI 4) has once again sparked a discussion about the most maligned submission of all--the heel hook. Cummings used the heel hook to submit his way through the tournament--which is an impressive feat given that he is well known for using the technique (hence, his opponents should have known to be on the look out for them).

As a fan and student of leg locks, I am glad to see Cummings highlighting the versatility and effectiveness of techniques like the heel hook that I think people should embrace rather than shy away from in (uninformed) fear. I have written here before about the pernicious effects of conservatism in jiu jitsu. I won't repeat my gripes here. Instead, I want to focus on the following video posted by Budo Jake (a Gracie Barra black belt and the owner of Budovideos.com--one of the leading distributors of jiu jitsu videos and apparel on the interwebs). In the following video--entitled, "Heel Hookery"--Budo Jake asks his audience whether heel hooks are going to be a newfound focus of their game in the wake of Cummings success at EBI4:

In this video, his main question is whether heel hooks will become a "trend." As he says,

"How about you? Now, after seeing Eddie Cummings dominant heel hook performance, is that something that you're going to put in your game? Umm, for me, it's probably not. I train a little more in the gi than without. Of course, in the gi, most people don't do heel hooks at all. Without the gi, some academies do, so academies don't. At Gracie Barra headquarters, there's a group of us that do sometimes...but generally speaking most people don't do heel hooks even in no gi classes....it's something that can be fun to do, learn the attacks, learn the defenses, there's all that stuff. But you've got to be careful. Heel hooks can be very dangerous."

Here again, we find what I would like to call the "dangerousness canard"--that is, the differential and deferential treatment of the heel hook as something particularly dangerous. Coming from Budo Jake, this is especially irritating. After all, he has already asked Eddie Cummings (see here), Shawn Williams (see here), and Stephen Koepher (see here) about the alleged unique dangerousness of heel hooks and in each case he has already been set straight. As each of these world-class grapplers made clear to him in some detail, the dangerousness of heel hooks (and other footlocks) is born of ignorance.

There is nothing intrinsic to the technique that makes it abnormally dangerous. Rather, because of artificial constraints and fear-mongering (absent sound data), people aren't familiar enough with the position. It's this ignorance that makes the heel hook dangerous. If people were similarly uneducated about the arm bar or kimura, these techniques would be every bit as dangerous. As Williams pointed out in his interview with Budo Jake, it's the person and not the technique that make leg locks like heel hooks dangerous.

The solution is not to collectively shy away from what may very well be the most effective and efficient submission in grappling. Rather, education is the key (as always). Anything less is fear mongering. Appealing to the IBJJF as Budo Jake does--which is somewhat understandable given that he's Gracie Barra and the head of GB also happens to be the head of IBJJF (namely, Carlos Gracie Jr.)--in a weak effort to show that heel hooks are dangerous and should be avoided (especially in the gi) is a fallacious appeal to authority. The mere fact that the almighty overloads of the IBJJF have deemed heel hooks unsafe doesn't make them so. Beware of the dangerousness canard!

The reason Cummings was able to tear through EBI4 with a series of heel hooks submissions is that his opponents did not spend enough time training the ins and outs of the position. Had they have taken the position as seriously as they should, perhaps they could have had more luck keeping themselves safe. But if we embrace fear-mongering, ignorance, and the dangerousness canard as Budo Jake has seemingly done, then we will collectively be in a woulda, coulda, shoulda position when it comes to heel hooks. That seems like a lose-lose situation to me--which is why I am committed to mastering the heel hook no less than the arm bar. And you?